A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
A call transfer services may be utilized, for example, by a company (i.e., a manufacturing company, insurance provider, etc. . . . ), in transferring or conferencing received telephone calls associated with a particular telephone number, such as the companies toll-free telephone number, to a telephone number external to the particular company branch location.
Where a company has numerous company locations, it may be necessary for a company operator or an interactive voice response unit (IVR) handling telephone calls for the company location to transfer or conference a call external to the company (i.e. to another company location). For example, the toll free number for a company may direct a calling party to a company location A, however, the customer service department for the company is located at company location B. In this circumstance, where it is indicated that the incoming call at company location A is to be transferred to or conferenced with another company location (i.e. to Location B), the IVR or company operator must place the incoming call on hold, access an additional incoming line to the company, and use the additional incoming line to connect to the new destination (i.e. telephone number to which the incoming call is to be transferred). The operator can then initiate the connection for the incoming line to the new destination. When doing this, two incoming lines to the company location are utilized to maintain the connection of the incoming call to the new destination, until the call is terminated. A call transfer service provided by the telephone company may be utilized such that a transfer or conference of an incoming call to an additional telephone number external to the company may be commenced using only a single incoming telephone line to the company, and after the transfer is commenced, the telephone network, and not the company, maintains the connection, thus freeing up the incoming lines at the company used to initiate the call transfer.
The call transfer service may be implemented as a call transfer service platform, for example, one or more computers/servers that may include switching and IVR capabilities to perform call transfer service functionality. The call transfer service platform is typically connected with a telephone service switching point (SSP). A telephone call initiated to a telephone number subscribing to the call transfer service is routed to the SSP, from the SSP through the platform and back to the SSP, and then to the call destination. By routing the calls through the platform (i.e. placing the platform into the call loop), the platform is able to monitor calls placed to a call transfer service subscriber telephone number for call transfer service commands. Call transfer service commands typically take the format of standardized 1 or 2 DTMF sequences indicating how a particular call to the telephone number is to be handled, for example, transferred or conferenced.
The DTMF sequence may be entered automatically by a IVR at the subscriber location in response to a caller selection, or by an operator at the subscriber location in response to a caller request. When the platform detects the DTMF sequence and telephone number to which the call is to be transferred or conferenced, the platform directs the switch to connect the call to the new destination telephone number (i.e. to which the transfer is desired), and releases the telephone line to the company, thus allowing a telephone call to be transferred to a new telephone number without tying-up the company incoming telephone lines.
To take advantage of a call transfer service, companies subscribe to the call transfer service from the local telephone company, where the call transfer service is associated with a telephone number (usually a toll-free number) for the company. Upon subscribing to the call transfer service, the company sets up a call-handling scheme describing potential actions/handling of a telephone call received at the associated telephone number with the help of the telephone company personnel.
Where the company employs a call transfer service from the local telephone company, telephone company personnel must receive detailed instructions from the company indicating when and how calls to the company premise are to be handled, for example, transferred, conferenced, and placed on hold. The telephone company personnel must then program the call transfer service platform to handle the company telephone number in the way directed by the company, using the standardized DTMF sequences that the platform understands.
Further, when a call-handling scheme must be modified, such as to change the telephone number to which a particular call must be transferred, or to add additional options to the call-handling scheme, the company must utilize telephone company personnel to make the changes to the call-handling scheme via a written change request to the telephone company. The detailed instructions or the change requests are often processed one or more days after they are received by the telephone company, and accordingly, leave the company with no call transfer service, or inaccurate call transfer service call-handling scheme information until the change request is processed.
This invention is directed to solving one or more of the problems discussed above.